Icy roads caused almost 100 wrecks in Etowah County

An Etowah County school bus slid into a ditch Thursday morning after hitting a patch of ice on Owls Hollow Road, despite a two-hour weather delay for schools in Etowah County.

By Lisa RogersTimes Staff Writer

An Etowah County school bus slid into a ditch Thursday morning after hitting a patch of ice on Owls Hollow Road, despite a two-hour weather delay for schools in Etowah County.Two students were on the bus about 8:30 a.m., but nobody was injured, Jimmy Sewell, Etowah County Schools transportation director, said.The students were placed on another bus and the route was completed. The bus had to be pulled from the ditch with a wrecker, but it was drivable, Sewell said.“The ditch is shallow right there,” Sewell said. It happened on a dirt portion of Owls Hollow Road near Turkeytown Road, not far off U.S. Highway 411.The icy patch on Owls Hollow Road was one of the only remnants Thursday morning of the freezing rain and icy roads that led to almost 100 wrecks in Etowah County alone.A Gadsden police officer was injured about 7 p.m. Wednesday when he was out of his patrol car, helping a driver involved in a wreck on Rainbow Drive near Interstate 759, and was struck by a car that slid on the icy road. The car hit the guard rail, Gadsden Police Capt. Regina May said.Officer Jerome Mitchell was hit by a car after another car hit a patch of ice, lost control and slid into the rear of the first car and knocked that car into Mitchell, May said.Mitchell was treated and released from the hospital, May said.“Our officers were having a difficult time walking and standing on the ice,” she said. “We were fortunate that there weren’t more serious injuries than there were. I think we should remind employers that when predictions like the one Wednesday come out, they need to think of their employees and consider closing up early, before things get bad, and give employees a chance to get home safely.”There were 49 weather-related wrecks in Gadsden during the time roads were icy from the freezing rain that began to fall just before noon. Most of the wrecks occurred on ramps and overpasses.About 1 p.m. there was a three-car pileup on Lake Gadsden Parkway between Rainbow Drive and George Wallace Drive.Three cars were headed west when the first one lost control and struck the bridge. The second car following behind could not stop in time to avoid hitting the first car, May said. After the impact with the first car, the second car bounced into the path of a third car, May said.May said a vehicle wrecked about 11:26 p.m. on Sutton Bridge Road when it skidded out of control on the bridge, left the roadway and struck a tree.Alabama State Troopers worked 32 wrecks in Etowah, DeKalb and Cherokee counties from the time the roads became icy on Wednesday until about 6 a.m. Thursday, trooper spokesman Chad Joiner said. He said there were seven injuries in those wrecks, but he did not have information about the severity of those injuries.The Gadsden and state trooper wreck numbers do not include the vehicles that slid into ditches and had to be towed, but had no damage that required a wreck report.Denise Cooey, deputy director at the Gadsden-Etowah County Emergency Management Agency, said she kept expecting temperatures to rise on Wednesday, as the National Weather Service had predicted, but they did not climb until early Thursday.She said the temperature did not rise above freezing until about midnight and hovered between 32 and 34 degrees until about 4 a.m., when it climbed to about 35 degrees and continued to rise throughout the morning. She said by about 7:30 a.m. Thursday, the temperature was about 40 degrees.But when freezing rain began Wednesday, road conditions quickly became hazardous. Dozens of wrecks were reported, but Cooey said she was not aware of any serious injuries in this part of the state.“Overall, we were very lucky,” she said.The freezing rain advisory first was issued through noon Wednesday. It was extended to 3 p.m., then to 6 p.m., then to 10 p.m. and then to 4 a.m. Thursday.Cooey said several agencies responded to wrecks and stranded motorists.“We really appreciate all that everyone did, especially the volunteer agencies,” she said. “Everyone was risking their lives.”Road conditions became so severe about 8 p.m. Wednesday that the Etowah County Road Department made the decision to stop sanding the roadways until conditions improved, said Robert Nail of the county engineering office.After the roads began icing, crews used four dump trucks set aside especially to sand the roads, Nail said.He said the roads first were icy and frozen and several eventually had solid sheets of ice.At one point, Nail said, the Egypt Volunteer Fire Department was unable to get out of its fire hall parking lot, and the county’s crews had to sand the parking lot.One of the dump trucks hit a patch of ice and overturned on Tumlin Gap Road in the Gallant area.“The truck already had gone over that road and put down sand,” Nail said “It was headed back on the road and the conditions had deteriorated so much in that time. It hit the ice, slid into the ditch and overturned. It got to the point that we couldn’t safely maneuver to sand the roads and we stopped for the night.”Nail said it seemed conditions were worse in the higher elevations north and west of Interstate 59.He said the road department had sand stockpiled and had the four trucks ready after the forecast called for the freezing rain.“We were ready, but we don’t have the equipment to handle the kinds of problems we were having,” Nail said.

Online Services

Original content available for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons license, except where noted.
Gadsden Times ~ 401 Locust St. Gadsden, AL 35901, Gadsden, AL 35901 ~ Privacy Policy ~ Terms Of Service